Character App:
Name: John Lyn Stratus
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Rank: 2nd Lieutenant
Appearance/Pic: The Lieutenant toting his signature "disposable canteen".
Nationality: Central/South Sotoan
Aircraft: Vought F-8E [Estimated Cost: $10 Million Total/$8 Million Base (Modernization Refit roughly $2 Million with some superstructure reinforcement and air-frame re-stabilizing done to accommodate newer turbofan jet engine)]
Height: 6'4"
Weight: 190 lbs
Likes: He's a typical teen, he likes to game on his free time being an expert in flight sims, he often avoids most anything else and has his own dedicated gaming rig to play some of the more hard core sim games. On top of that, he enjoys electronic music and grunge rock and can often be seen eating any and all sorts of food, but he likes to usually eat with either his hands or the pair of stainless steel chopsticks he generally carries on him at all times in his thigh pouch. He enjoys metallic colors, but prefers silver and grey and darker hues of said colors, than lighter ones. He also has a tablet which he pretty much carries on him at all times. It is made of flexible electronics which he makes the best use of by rolling into a tube for safe-keeping whenever it isn't in use. It usually can always be found on his person as well. He also enjoys drinking root-beer, though he's known to often pretend it is actual ale.
Dislikes: Alcohol, the stuff makes him nauseous and he hates not being in control of his senses. These are also his feelings for pain killers and most other sorts of drugs meant to dull or aid the senses. He'd rather get by on whatever he has available to him with the only exception he makes to this rule being adrenaline. He also dislikes ever owing someone anything, and often will hold it to himself that he needs to repay his debts before he can be at ease, this has also lead to several conflicts of interest during his life as a mercenary and likewise, it has lead to many waking nightmares he wish he could undo.
Biography: Born in 2004, he grew up in a time filled with great tumult in and around his home in Central Sotoa. Growing up heavily sheltered and looked after by his parents and his two older siblings, he was witness to their brutal murder in 2010 when a mob rioting against the anti-communist government stormed his childhood home and murdered his father, a government worker alongside his wife and two eldest children. Left to fend for himself, he also was left to raise the fourth and youngest child, his younger sister Lisabel Evangeline Stratus (age two at the time). Left as the sole inheritor of his father's Estate he followed the instruction of his fathers old veteran friend, a man by the name of Isaac Victor Shill to invest in a small start-up company by him. this company grew to become a large paramilitary organization in Central Sotoa.
By the age of twelve, (in the year 2016) the rewards of his early childhood investment began to pay off as the notoriety of the group named the Crimson Blade Military Security Company and this allowed him to not only send himself, but also his six year old sister. Growing up under the watchful gaze of his father's friend and the guards given to him by Crimson Blade, he grew to want to become a fighter pilot with Central Sotoa military, but in 2018 everything changed as pro-communist forces revolted and sent the Crimson Blade packing along with his sister after a death sentence was given to them. Managing to flee to larger and more stable South Sotoa, he grew up in the absence of his father's old friend as he had failed to escape in time and was sentenced to be executed in three years time in a prison compound.
Now on a time clock, he ditched his traditional schooling and learned to fly from those left in the Crimson Blade in South Sotoa. Learning first to fly propeller planes, he gained his wings and eventual certification to fly military-grade jets which lead to the beginning of his life as a mercenary fighter pilot as he led a full raid in 2021 on a compound where Isaac Shill was being held. Flying as air support in an F-8E Crusader while a prisoner revolt was staged, he managed to claim two air victories against the Central Sotoan air force's own fighters launched to shoot down the three evacuation helicopters that landed in a secured zone four kilometers away from the prison compound itself.
In the end, the mission ended successfully yet South Sotoa was pressured into evicting Crimson Blade and its assets by the Central Sotoan government and in the end it did so. Withdrawing his own holdings in the company and leaving it to his younger sister to fund her own educational enterprises, he pursued a life of adventure, and became a mercenary fighter pilot. Allowed to keep on hand a personal crew of twenty further aided by occasional reinforcements from Crimson Blade (now once again fully functional and not going down the drain in the absence of key staff), he now has been brought into the large fight going on between the ISAF and the Selpin and Belkan forces and is currently being transferred along with his ground crew to the base where Liderc Squadron is now stationed.
His Vought F-8 Crusader has been given extensive structural and electronic refits in order to remain relevant in most air-to-air engagements, but he is currently holding onto an allotment of extra funds to save up for a new fighter in the form of a Mig-1.44 or a Chengdu J-20.
